Question 1: Company Chosen AMAZON
Fully explain why you chose the company you did in which to analyze and present as your FINAL requirement. State the company’s product focus, targeted customers, competitive advantage in the industry and business model.
Question 2:
I. Executive Summary
Offer a brief summary of your analysis. BRIEFLY state your final recommendation: What do you think [your chosen case] should do to most improve long-term performance? What is the underlying problem this recommendation addresses? Why do you conclude this is the best method for addressing that problem?
II. Current Status Assessment
A. Define [your] firm’s current competitive strategy
Define and explain each component of such
B. Describe your assessment of the firm’s financial performance
Creating Value: What do you conclude about their ability to create value? Use data to support your conclusion.
Capturing Value: same as above.
Identify and explain your overall conclusion about the area most in need of attention to improve long-term performance.
C. Identify and describe [your] firm’s most valuable sources of competitive advantage (i.e. most
strategic valuable resources and/or capabilities).
D. Internal Environment:
– describe in detail all components associated with your company’s Internal Environment such as: Corporate culture; Corporate resources, etc.
E. SWOT Analysis
Identify the firm’s valuable resources and capabilities then rank them using VRIN criteria to identify the top 3 most valuable internal strengths/sources of competitive advantage
F. External Environment:
Identify and discuss in detail your external environment, which focuses on the forces outside of an organization that are not typically within the short-run control of Top Management that influence your company’s decision-making challenges.
Identify and describe the Key Success Factors in the firm’s external environment.
your list of PESTEL factors followed by your argument for which three are the most important drivers of change that producers need to pay attention in the coming years.
III. Describe your assessment of strategic alignment, concluding with a description (and argument) of what you believe is the #1 (ONE) underlying cause (misalignment) that needs to be addressed.
Identify (list) misalignments between the firm’s competitive strategy and industry key success factors
Identify (list) misalignments between the firm’s valuable resources and capabilities and their competitive strategy
Specify the ONE misalignment you believe is the biggest factor related to the priority performance dimension you deemed most needed attention
IV. State and argue your final recommendation.
State your recommendation for a strategic change to improve the firm’s long-term performance. Include your recommendation as to HOW the issue should be addresses. Briefly explain what criteria you used to recommend a specific course of action and how your final recommendation was derived using those criteria.
V. Conclusion – Summarize your overall assessment and path forward espoused in your Report, which should probably include the following:
what is the most important problem here?
how is it affecting performance?
how will it continue to affect performance if not addressed?
what strategic change(s) do you propose to improve alignment and results? What do you expect the results to be if your proposal is effectively implemented? What are the main arguments why this specific plan is the best alternative?
Question 3:
Identify and name what sites, reference material, tools, internal/external source material, etc., you plan to use to aid you in writing the FINAL version of your Report. You can also add this category to your Draft Outline giving me some idea of your intent.